Fine tune your shooting skills. Whether you want to get more proficient with your bow, sight in a new rifle, practice shooting your pistol, or hone your bird shooting skills, our Turcotte Range is the place to go. We have a pistol range, a 300-yard rifle range, 2 archery ranges, 2 skeet ranges, a 5-stand range, and a sporting clay course.

RANGE CLOSURE NOTICES

The Rifle Range is CLOSED due to flooding. We don't expect it to reopen until after Thanksgiving Day, at the earliest. The entire Turcotte Shooting Facility will be CLOSED on Thursday, November 22nd for Thanksgiving Day. We want to wish everyone a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!

MS Scholastic Shooting Program

The Mississippi Scholastic Shooting Program (MSSP) is a team-based, youth development program that uses the shotgun sports of 5-Stand, Skeet, and Sporting Clays to instill life skills such as discipline, safety, teamwork, ethics, self-confidence, and other life values.

In addition to our Handgun Classes, including the Enhanced Carry Permit Class, being offered at Turcotte on the 1st, 3rd, and 4th Wednesdays of each month, in April, we started offering classes on Tuesdays, as well, to give folks more opportunities to take one of our classes. What follows is our October & early November Class Schedule for Turcotte, then a listing of the type of classes that we are offering. If you need more information or wish to sign up for one of our classes, please email us (at stevem@wfp.ms.gov). Please do not delay, as classes are rapidly filling!

November 20th: Basic Handgun 200 Class: ($17.66)

November 21st: Basic Handgun 100 Class: ($17.66)

November 27th: Enhanced Carry Permit Class: ($107)

November 28th: Basic Handgun 100 Class: ($17.66)

December 4th: Basic Handgun 200: ($17.66)

December 5th: Enhanced Carry Permit Class: ($107)

December 11th: Basic Handgun 100 Class: ($17.66)

December 12th: Basic Handgun 200 Class: ($17.66)

ALL CLASSES WILL START AT 9:00 A.M. ON THEIR SCHEDULED DAY AND END APPROXIMATELY 5:30 P.M., UNLESS YOU ARE IN THE 2ND RELAY OF AN ENHANCED CARRY PERMIT CLASS. IN THAT CASE, WE MAY NOT FINISH UNTIL 6:30 OR 7:00 P.M.

Classes are held at the Hunter Education Building. Please read the following class listings for information on the classes and what you are required to bring to your respective class.

BASIC HANDGUN 100 CLASS:

(6 hours of lecture/classroom work and 2 hours of work on the firing range)

This course of instruction is for the person who has “little or no experience with a handgun.” If you have just purchased a handgun, or would like to purchase one, but have no idea what to purchase, nor what you need for your purposes, be they self-defense, hunting, or recreational target shooting, then this is the course for you. We begin with a thorough safety lecture, and then familiarize you with two basic types of firearms – pistols and revolvers – and teach you how to safely and properly operate them. The basics of how to stand, how to hold the handgun, how to use the sights, and how to manipulate the trigger will be covered in both lectures and on-the-range exercises. What causes recoil, and methods of mitigating recoil, are also covered, in both lecture and on-the-range exercises.

Four handguns will be made available for the class to try. One will be a Browning HP, chambered in 9mm Parabellum (a.k.a.9mm Luger or 9x19), a Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver, chambered in .38 Special, a Smith & Wesson Model 60 revolver, chambered in .38 Special, and a Glock Model 43 chambered in 9mm Parabellum. A limited amount of ammunition will be provided for students to shoot during this course, to determine what level of recoil that they can handle. If you want to shoot additional rounds, you will have to provide the additional ammo, yourself. This course will normally be limited to no more than 8 students, primarily for safety reasons, but also to be able to give each beginning student the necessary one-on-one instructor/student attention. You may bring your own handgun and ammunition, and are required to bring your own eye and ear protection, as well as any other personal gear that you deem necessary (such as bug repellent, sunscreen, water, lunch, etc.)

Students are required to bring: Eye & ear protection, as well as paper & pen to take notes.

COST: $17.66

BASIC HANDGUN 200 CLASS: Prerequisite – Basic Handgun 100 Class

(2 hours of lecture, 3 hours of shooting on the firing range, and 3 hours of learning how to take apart, clean, and maintain your firearm.)

This course of instruction is a natural “follow on” to the Basic Handgun 100 course. It gives you, the student, an opportunity to practice, under an instructor’s watchful eye, what you’ve learned in the Basic Handgun 100 course, with your own firearm, then, very importantly, you’ll be taught how to take down, clean, and properly maintain your firearm.

(6 hours of lecture, followed by 2 hours of shooting on the firing line)

This course of instruction is to qualify an individual for the Mississippi Enhanced Carry Permit, as issued by the Mississippi Highway Patrol, Firearms Permit Unit. More specifically, the purposes of this course are to: a) expose you to the legal requirements, regarding concealed carry within the State of Mississippi, b) to verify that you are both safe and competent with your firearm, and c) to award you the certificate required for issue of a MississippiEnhanced Carry Permit.

Students are required to bring: You must provide your own firearm, 100 rounds of ammunition, gun belt, holster, eye protection and ear protection for this course. At the conclusion of the morning lectures, you must pass a 50-shot qualification test, which will be fired from 3 yards and 7 yards. We require the additional 50 rounds, in case you don’t pass the initial qualification shooting test, and need to re-shoot the test.

COST: $107.00

Entrance Fees/Annual Range Permits/Methods of Payment

As of 7-1-13, WMA Permits are no longer required to shoot at our Turcotte Range Facility. Instead, an entrance fee/permit system has been instituted. Shooters may pay by one of two methods: either (a) pay $5.50 per hour, or (b) purchase an Annual Range Permit (prices listed below).

We now accept payment with either a credit or a debit card, cash or a personal check!

More information on the fees charged at MDWFP public shooting facilities can be found at LE - 6.1; Range Fees.

Annual Resident Range Permit - $42.29

Annual Senior Range Permit - $22.29

Annual Non-Resident Range Permit - $84.29

Range StatusIf severe weather is in the area, the Turcotte Shooting Range will close.For more information please call (601) 859-5164 on days that we are open. We apologize for any inconvenience. please check back periodically for status updates.

Rifle: The rifle range currently has fourteen shooting positions on seven tables available. We have movable target stands and shooters are able to engage targets out to 300 yards.

Handgun:Our handgun range has 12 shooter positions and firing lines at 3, 7, 15, 25, 50, and 60 yards. Only one firing line can be active at any time.

Sporting Clay:Our sporting clay range stretches a length of 1.3 miles through the woods. It is a newly constructed range with challenging shots throughout a woodland course. We use an electronic clay counting system that allows a single shooter to use the course when the time delay option is selected. There are twelve (12) shooting stations on the course. One complete round of sporting clays is 50 shots. We charge $.25 per clay; thus, if you throw only 50 clays/round, that round will cost you a total of $12.50. We have golf carts available for rent at $5.00 per day.

Skeet: Turcotte has two (2) Olympic style skeet ranges on the premises for shooters to hone their shooting abilities throughout the year.

5 Stand: We offer a "Kamikaze Dove Field" simulating actual hunting conditions to ready you for hunting season or just to test your skills.

Archery: Turcotte offers a 3D archery range utilizing both known and unknown distance shots in a safe environment.

Other Range Information:We offer targets for sale for both rifle and pistol ranges.

Neither tape nor staplers are provided, so make sure that you bring some means of affixing your target to our target stands on the rifle and pistol ranges!

All shooters must complete the Range Rules and Regulations documentation. In our new system, you only have to enter the required information and acknowledge that you've read and understood the rules, once. You will no longer be required to do this on an annual basis.

All shooters and accompanying personnel (even though they're not shooting) must sign in and sign out on the "Turcotte Range Sign In/out Sheet," located on a clipboard in the Range Office, each time they visit the range facility.

Hearing and eye protection required at all times!!

All firearms must be handled in a safe manner while on the range.

When moving on and off the range facility, each firearm must be unloaded, cased, or holstered. No one can touch a firearm unless they are on the forward edge of the active firing line!

All shooting must cease 15 minutes prior to closing time, at which time all shooters & guests must proceed to the Range Office to sign out/check out.

Shooters are responsible for taking down and disposing of their paper targets before departing the range.